pimpernel: [15] The burnet, a plant of the rose family, has fruit that look like peppercorns. It was therefore termed in Vulgar Latin *piperīnella, a derivative of *piperīnus ‘pepperlike’, which in turn was based on Latin piper ‘pepper’ (source of English pepper). This passed into Old French as piprenelle, which was later altered to pimpernelle – hence English pimpernel. This too denoted the ‘burnet’, and it is not clear how it came to be applied (as early as the 15th century) to the small red-flowered plant of the primrose family, its current usage. => pepper
pimpernel (n.)
c. 1400, from Old French pimprenelle, earlier piprenelle (12c.) and directly from Medieval Latin pipinella name of a medicinal plant. This is perhaps from *piperinus "pepper-like" (so called because its fruits resemble peppercorns), a derivative of Latin piper "pepper" (see pepper (n.)); or else it is a corruption of bipinnella, from bipennis "two-winged." The Scarlet Pimpernel was the code name of the hero in an adventure novel of that name published 1905.
实用例句
1. However he also a master of disguise and bears an infamous secret identity: the Scariet Pimpernel.
